1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information management technique, and in particular, to a medical information management technique for managing information on medical practice.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a medical site, when a doctor performs an examination, a treatment, or the like, vital sign monitor (VSM) for monitoring biological information on a patient is used. The VSM is a device for measuring an arterial oxygen saturation (SpO2) and a pulse rate of a patient to display them in real time. Some of the VSMs display an electrocardiogram, blood pressure, and body temperature, etc. A doctor performs an examination or a treatment while checking biological information on a patient with the VSM.
Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 1996-263570 discloses a system in which a first medical diagnostic imaging device and a second medical diagnostic imaging device are connected with each other via a communication line. In this system, the first medical diagnostic imaging device transmits data for setting imaging conditions to the second medical diagnostic imaging device through this communication line, and the second medical diagnostic imaging device uses the imaging conditions by extracting them from the received data for setting imaging conditions. Japanese Patent Publication No 4473690 discloses an image inspection device. In the image inspection device, when the patient identification information on medical image data collected in the past and that of medical image data newly collected match each other; and when the respective patient information added to both the medical image data are different from each other, the patient information added to the medical image data collected in the past can be replaced by that added to the medical image data newly collected.
It is preferable that biological information measured with the VSM is stored by being associated with execution information on an examination, a treatment, or the like. In some countries, it is obligated to store biological information and execution information by associating them with each other. Because each of biological information and execution information is generated by being connected to patient identification information (patient ID) for identifying a patient, it can be considered that the processing for associating the biological information and the execution information with each other (hereinafter, referred to as “association processing”), performed when the respective patient ID match each other, has basically no problem.
However, it can occur that, for example, patient ID is erroneously inputted to the VSM and the erroneously inputted patient ID, to which biological information is connected, accidentally matches another patient ID. Accordingly, it is not preferable that association processing is performed when both patient ID only match each other, because the biological information connected to erroneously inputted patient ID may be associated with the execution information on another patient. In addition, when a patient undergoes a plurality of examinations or treatments, a plurality of pieces of execution information are sometimes generated for the person. In such a case, the biological information should be associated with one of the execution information; however, it is difficult to perform association processing when both patient ID match each other, because the patient ID, to which the biological information is connected, matches the patient ID, to which the plurality of pieces of execution information are connected. Accordingly, there is a demand for a technique in which biological information and execution information are stored by being associated with each other easily and surely.